WHILE we can look back at another tremendous year for British Rowing, the Olympians of the future put down some markers for Tokyo 2020 at the latest Great Britain trials, writes John Wiggins.

Following some impressive performances at the open trials last month, the first of the ‘invitation only’ time trials took place at the GB base in Caversham.

Each sculler and pair raced over the 2,000m course twice to accumulate an overall 4km time.

Fastest of the lightweight singles was Oxford Brookes’s Jamie Copus who had a clear six-second margin over fellow Brookes sculler, Joel Cassells in second place.

The Chambers brothers – formerly of Brookes – were both absent, Richard having retired and Peter with a medical exemption.

In the lightweight women’s group, Wallingford RC were again prominent.

Gemma Hall was only a second off victory, with Brianna Stubbs a few seconds behind in third place, but Eli Piggott had to miss the event with a virus.

Oxford University’s Flo Pickles was ninth overall, although she was the faster of the two under-23 scullers in the mix.

In the open weight women’s pairs, Oxford Blue Zoe Lee and Karen Bennett (Olympic silver medallists from the GB eight at Rio) seemed to be heading for victory after a dominant first leg, but had to withdraw.

The chance was taken by the pair with Headington ex-pupils, Fiona Gammond in first place, but only a fraction of a second ahead of former Dark Blues’ president, Anastasia Chitty racing with Rebecca Chinn.

The men’s pairs with so many of the Olympic medallists absent, also provided an opportunity for others to stake their claims.

Oxford Brookes’ Matt Tarrant was in the second-placed pair with Alan Sinclair, while St Edward’s old boy Stewart Innes (fourth-placed at Rio with Sinclair) was a few seconds back in fifth with Matt Gotrel.

Further medical exemptions were given for Oli Cooke and William Warr, both new to the Oxford University squad, while Blue, Josh Bugajski, was a creditable ninth in the men’s single.

A number of the Rio team were ill while others, including Peter Reed, were listed with exemptions which leads to speculation about the future involvement of many other 2016 Olympians.

Some, like Wheatley’s Frances Houghton have declared their retirement from international rowing and Andrew Triggs Hodge has ominously been selling off rowing kit for charity.

But what of other Oxford Blues, Paul Bennett and Olympic gold medallist Constantin Louloudis? Watch this space.

Cox of the women’s GB eight, Zoe de Toledo, though still in Oxford, has her work cut out as she has embarked on a post-graduate medical course.

But we shall have to wait to see the shape of the GB teams for 2017 and beyond.